SHOULD any of us be unfortunate enough to be called to appear in front of a court any time soon we can at least take some comfort. We may no longer have to show our face.

That isn't to say we won't be obliged to turn up. For the time being at least that will probably remain necessary. But we will not need to actually show our face. For a great precedent has now been set. Earlier this week fanatical Muslim convert Rebekah Dawson made legal history in this country. Up in court on charges of witness intimidation Dawson - who wears the full Islamic face covering - simply refused to show her face.

This was the fanatical 22-year-old convert to Islam who (although she could not be named at the time) made headlines last September when a judge asked her to remove her face-covering in court and she refused. Indeed Dawson's barrister Susan Meek argued at a pre-trial hearing that her client had a right to remain fully veiled in court, revealing only part of her eyes.

The barrister's defence was that her client's "right" to do this was protected by the European Convention on Human Rights. Did those learned, if misguided, minds who put together that ill-fated convention ever imagine this was where their legal system would end up? IN ANY case, stuck on the issue the judge at Blackfriars Crown Court Peter Murphy reached what was soon applauded as an eminently sensible British compromise. It was suggested by the judge that the defendant should not have to show her face when listening to the evidence of others but only when giving evidence herself.

In that moment a fatal compromise was made between British justice and Islamic fanaticism. For the principle that it is important that the judge and jury should be able to see the face of the accused is as old as trial by jury itself.

It is based not just on the court knowing that the person in the dock is the person who is meant to be in the dock. It is also based on the fact that one of the ways in which a jury can reach a verdict is by observing the defendant, when they are listening to others give evidence and when they are giving evidence themselves.

In compromising a part of this principle last September Judge Peter Murphy took a fatal step. But it was one which in any case the woman we now know to be Rebekah Dawson had no intention of obeying.

Dawson continued to refuse to show herself, eventually waiving her right to give evidence. Her insistence on the most fundamentalist interpretations of Islam thus led to endless cost and waste of court time.

Not just in the endless to-ings and fro-ings over whether the accused should have to show her face. It was also wasted in steps being taken such as a female police officer having to repeatedly go into a private room at the court and ask the defendant to lift her veil so the policewoman could confirm that the person under the veil was the accused.

How Dawson herself got to this belligerent position is itself telling. Of Jamaican origin and raised in a Christian family her father was a convicted drugsmuggler.

For whatever reason in recent years she fell into the orbit of Muslim fanatics, including some centred around the notorious Finsbury Park Mosque. Indeed it was a caretaker at the mosque who Dawson was on trial for intimidating.

The caretaker was attacked by Dawson for allowing "naked women" into the mosque. By "naked women" Dawson meant women who were not covered in the complete body and face veil she adopted only in 2012.

Her story is relatively typical. It is often a cause for despair among mainstream Muslims that converts so often flee to the wildest extremes of their religion. Over years of studying such radicalism I have seen this many times.

Women who wear the full-face veil are still a minority but often converts or those who are otherwise rebelling against their upbringing adopt this exclusionary and intimidating practice.

Dawson fits this trend. Her behaviour in court was all part of the contempt that the wearing of the full veil displays - not just for British justice but for British society as a whole.

LATE last year I took part in a discussion on the wearing of this garment at the East London Mosque. All the women in the audience - specially selected for the occasion - wore the full burka or niqab. Their contempt for British society was complete. I afterwards learned that they had attacked a Muslim woman who was on my side and wore only a headscarf, hissing at her for daring to even sit next to what they called (using the quasi-racist term for non-Muslims) "a kafir man".

Throughout her trial Dawson showed just that contempt. After she was permitted to go through the trial fully covered it is unsurprising that the jury had trouble reaching a verdict. The only surprising thing was that having wasted so much court time at the final stage the defendant suddenly pleaded guilty after all. She will be sentenced at a later date.

In his summing up the judge told the jury: "This is not a ruling about religion. It is about the ability of the court to hear a fair trial." Indeed. But in letting someone ride roughshod over our norms and bending our system to fit the most extreme Islamic principles this was a ruling about British justice. And in this latest round of a long-running battle it is once again our society, and our justice system that showed itself to be weak and wanting.